Worth the Risk
by litvirg
Summary: Bellamy's thoughts during and after his conversation with Clarke at the fire, and the events on the way to Mt Weather with Lincoln
1. Chapter 1

Octavia felt her jaw drop a tiny bit as she looked back and forth between Clarke and Bellamy. She kept waiting for _something_, for Clarke to say she was kidding, that of course she wouldn't risk Bellamy's life on the off chance that he could do something. For Bellamy to put his foot down, to say he wasn't going, that he wouldn't, that he _couldn't_ leave.

She waited for Raven to pinch her so she could wake up and realize that it was just a dream, a horrible dream, that it wasn't actually happening, that her brother wasn't being sent off to his death by Clarke, who was the only one besides her who could make Bellamy risk something so massive, so important. It wasn't real. It _wasn't_.

But none of that happened. She didn't see Clarke open her mouth to take it back, she didn't see Bellamy shout out that there was no way in hell he was going to go along with a plan so stupid, she didn't see Raven reach out and pinch her.

All she saw was the dip in Bellamy's head, the drop in his jaw when Clarke's words registered in his head. She saw his tiny step back at her words, as if he could outrun what she was saying if he only got a head start, as if physically dodging her sentence would make it go away.

She saw him nod, his eyes down to the ground.

She saw him hide away in himself, like he always did. And she saw Clarke take the out she offered him, and slip away tossing a _"Good luck,"_ over her shoulder as he stared down at his feet.

She couldn't talk Lincoln out of it. She knew she wouldn't be able to. The shadow hanging over him wouldn't go away until he made it. And she understood, she did.

But there was no shadow hanging over her brother. He wasn't fighting his own demons. He was fighting Clarke's.

She got up from her place next to Lincoln and walked over to him. He was facing away from her, watching the grounder camp.

"Bell," she said, grabbing his shoulder and turning him around. "This is a stupid plan."

He let out a slow breath, looking at the ground again. _Hiding_, she reminded herself. "O—"

"No," she interrupted. "No! You'll die," she spat. He brought his eyes to hers. "You know that. You'll go into that mountain and you won't come out."

He shook his head. "I have to do this, O."

"There's. Another. Way."

He just shook his head again.

Her brother, the man who had made every impossible choice for her entire life, who made them all to protect the people he loved, to protect her and her mother. To protect their friends. To protect Clarke. He was throwing it all away, because he was too scared to admit that he didn't follow Clarke's orders just because she was a good leader.

"This is a mistake," she said. He reached out to her, tried to pull her into him but she slipped out of his grip. She shook her head. "This is a mistake, and I'm not going to let it happen."

"Clarke!" she shouted, chasing after her, brushing past where Abby stood. Clarke stopped and turned to her, her face hard but weary. Worn down. Tired.

"Octavia, I know what you're going to say, but the decision has been made," Clarke said.

"The decision has been made?" Octavia spat. "It's a terrible decision! You're asking Bellamy to die, Clarke. You know that."

Clarke shook her head. "We don't know that. Bellamy is right, I made it out. He can make it in. He's strong, Octavia. He can take care of himself."

Octavia huffed out a laugh. "That's the only thing in this world my big brother doesn't know how to do. He's never taken care of himself, Clarke. He's always taking care of someone else."

Clarke looked over her shoulder, back at the fire. Bellamy was crouching down next to it, shoving supplies in his pack.

"They're his people, Octavia."

"He's not doing it for _them_," Octavia yelled. "He's doing it for _you_."

Clarke looked away. Down to her feet. She and Bellamy shared the little habit of looking down when they didn't want to confront something.

"Octavia—"

"It's not. Worth. The risk," she countered. "You think he would risk your life like this? You think he would ever ask you to die for the greater good?"

"Bellamy made this plan long before I agreed to it."

Clarke looked back up with her, her eyes stony. It wasn't the woman Octavia knew. She didn't recognize this Clarke. The Clarke she knew had taken care of her people, had taken care of Bellamy. She'd never willingly risked one of their lives in the off chance it might help them out. She'd run weaponless into a battle zone to look for Bellamy, to get him into the dropship. She'd smashed a window and cut her own arm, taken a hostage to find Monty. She'd killed Finn herself to avoid causing him anymore pain. She drank what could have been poison to protect Raven.

This wasn't Clarke.

"If _anything_ happens to him," Octavia grabbed her arm and pulled Clarke to her so that she couldn't look away. "That's on you." She let go and took a step back. "You might be in charge here Clarke, but he's my brother. And you have _no_ idea what that means."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: so i actually meant to post this chapter first (oops) but they don't really need to be read in any specific order anyway, so here's a drabble on Bellamy's thoughts on everything!**

"How did you know it was Gustus?" he heard Lincoln ask. He looked up and saw Clarke standing with Lexa not too far off. He felt his gut clench a bit at Lincoln's question.

"He would do anything for her, to protect her," Bellamy said staring into the fire. Octavia and Lincoln looked up at him startled. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Clarke start to make her way over to them. "It just makes sense."

He thought of Gustus, tied by his arms to that post and unconsciously started rubbing his wrists.

_No_, he thought. _It'd be different with us_.

"Look at the thanks he got," Octavia spat.

His remark died on his lips as Clarke stepped over to the fire. He stood. He was itching to talk to her, to plan their next move, to figure out what they were going to do.

All the air left his lungs when she spoke.

"You should go."

"I thought you hated that plan," he said. "That I would get myself killed."

_Say I'm right_, he begged silently. _Let me stay here. Let me stay and we can figure this out. We'll do it like we always do_.

"I was being weak. It's worth the risk."

The shadow of Gustus strapped up to the tree flickered across his eye.

He grabbed his pack and nodded to Lincoln.

"Get ready," he told him. "We leave at first light."

There was a storm brewing. He was grateful for the swift pace Lincoln was setting for them, leaving no time to pause and think of what exactly it was that they were doing. No time to think of how they were walking into almost certain death, no time to think of what they were leaving behind.

But Lincoln's silence was a reminder to him. That it wasn't just a rescue mission.

It was a hunt. And he wasn't leaving without a prize strapped to his back.

They'd only stopped a few times, a couple hours of sleep here or there. Neither wanted to spend too long sleeping. It was better to block out the dreams and keep moving when they could.

They wouldn't have stopped to take shelter if it wasn't for the acid fog. They ducked into a familiar cave, and Bellamy felt the weight of Charlotte's nightmares seep into his skin with each step. The weight of his own pressed against his eyelids as he told Lincoln he'd take first watch.

The cave was wide and open, and the sound of Gustus' reluctant groans slipped out of his head and echoed against the cold gray walls.

He looked down at Lincoln who was staring openly at the ceiling. His fists were clenched at his sides.

"We can find a different way in," he told him.

Lincoln shook his head. "There is no other way." He sat up. "I'll take watch. Get some sleep."

Bellamy slid himself to the ground, the back of his head pressing into the cold ground, and when he closed his eyes, the dirt against his neck felt like the bark of a tree.

His hands were bound above his head.

He felt a white hot fire pouring out of him, burning his skin as it trickled down, staining his skin, his clothes, coloring them a deep red, his shirt turning nearly black from the amount. It burned and it sent shivers down his spine and it clenched in and around his lungs until he could only take short breaths, but he kept his eyes open.

She stood in front of him, a knife in her hand, all the color drained from her face. Her eyes were wide and gleaming at him and he knew what he had to say but he didn't want to say it.

It came out as a whisper. "Be strong, Clarke."

She stepped forward, eyes on his, still brimming with tears but determined. Resolute.

"Good luck," she said, and then she plunged the knife into his heart.

He woke up sweating, Lincoln staring over at him from his side of the cave.

"How long did I sleep?" Bellamy grunted out, voice dry and husky. He reached for his water with one hand, and wiped the other across his forehead, soaking up some of the sweat with the sleeve of his shirt.

"A couple hours," Lincoln replied. "Let's get moving." He stomped out the small fire they had going and shouldered his pack, waiting for Bellamy at the mouth of the cave.

Bellamy rubbed his wrists as he took a deep breath.

_Shouldn't have expected anything other than nightmares in this cave_, he told himself. He thought back to the look on Clarke's face when she told him to go.

_"__It's worth the risk._"

Bellamy lifted his pack off the ground and brushed past Lincoln into the woods. "Come on," he said. "No time to waste."

"She's a good leader." Lincoln's voice broke through the crunching of leaves and the snapping of branches beneath their boots. "Brave."

Bellamy nodded. She was the leader her mother never could be, he knew that much. No amount of experience, no number of former chancellors guiding her, no matter what pin she wore, Abby would never be as strong as Clarke.

He didn't think anyone was as strong as Clarke.

_"__I was being weak."_

Her voice bounced around his mind, mocking him.

He wanted to tell her that she was strong, that she was a force of her own, that she couldn't be weak because that wasn't who she was. That they would follow her no matter what, that they saw the strength in her when she didn't, that it gave them strength they didn't have.

That he would do whatever she asked just because she asked it and maybe that made him the weak one, and maybe he should have been stronger or fought harder, but she was a bolt of lightning and he was standing in an open field under the tallest tree.

And he was always just waiting for her to strike.

"How much farther?" he asked Lincoln.

"An hour or so east until we're at the mines."

"Great," Bellamy said, snapping a branch in half with his boot. "We need a plan."

Lincoln's breathing had gotten faster as they reached the mines. His knuckles were white as his fists clenched at his sides.

Bellamy remembered the monster they tied up back in the dropship only days before. He watched as Lincoln stepped across the threshold of the mines and took a deep breath, breathing in the air where he'd been hunted, where he'd been turned into a monster, where he spilled blood and not given it a second thought.

And now, there he was again. Paint and chalk and mud on his face, back in his reaper clothes, with Bellamy behind him, draped in grounder rags, hands tied to a log strapped to his back.

Her eyes flashed in his head when the rope tied his first wrist up and then her words as his second was brought up to meet it.

_"__Good luck."_

Lincoln turned to him. "You sure about this?" he whispered. "We go any farther and there could be no turning back."

Bellamy straightened his back and took one solid step forward. He looked over at Lincoln.

"It's worth the risk," he said.


End file.
